Wednesday, June 29, 2016

The Toking Dead

New York City health officials issued warnings last spring after synthetic marijuana sent 160 people to hospitals in a little over a week. Thousands more were hospitalized statewide. Mayor de Blasio signed a bill banning the sale of the drug in October. At that time, the intersection of Lexington Avenue and 125th Street was considered the epicenter of the K2 problem.
A lifelong Harlem resident said: “They got rid of all the crackheads and here come the K2 smokers.”
Now it appears the drug has taken hold in Brooklyn. Residents told DNAinfo that K2 packages litter the sidewalks and a burning chemical odor fills the air near the Broadway-Myrtle intersection.
Trevor Tyrrell, 39, told DNAinfo that “people are passed out everywhere” or “yelling at passersby.”
“It’s an epidemic, every borough, every hood. Just look at the people on the corner, they look like zombies,” Tyrrell said.